Did Trump Jr. ‘Collude’ With Putin – Or Was He Set Up?

The storm now breaking over Washington surrounding Donald Trump, Jr.’s email communications with a British publicist may be much ado about a set-up.

Just how, exactly, did the anonymous sources cited by the New York Times come to possess Donald Trump, Jr.’s emails? It is a measure of the Deep State’s desperation that, by this device, they have blown their cover and openly, brazenly, come out as the coup plotters they are. Yes, rumors abound that the sources are in the White House, and this may in a sense be true: but of course, unlike Don Junior, the actual sources are smart enough to use go-betweens.

As the machinations and murky allegiances of various swamp creatures come to light, the main players resemble the characters out of a comedic novel.

There is Don Junior, the fresh-faced and rather obtuse presidential progeny, who walks straight into the arms of the clownish Bob Goldstone, a former British tabloid journalist and events promoter, who set up the fateful meeting. There is Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer who previously worked with Fusion GPS, the dirty tricks firm employed by the Never Trump crowd to that came up with the salacious “dirty dossier,” claiming that Trump had been compromised by Russian intelligence.

There’s the matter of how Veselnitskaya got into the country, having been initially denied a visa by the State Department and then given special dispensation allowing entry. In her affidavit stating why she should be allowed to enter, she said that she was representing a Russian company, Prevezon, in a money-laundering case brought by the US Department of Justice. In this task she was working alongside Fusion GPs, which had been hired by Prevezon to assist in the case. No doubt Veselnitskaya’s history with the folks at Fusion GPs will eventually come out, but they are resisting demands for documents by Sen. Chuck Grassley, citing their First Amendment rights as “journalists.” Given what “journalists” have become these days, one can see their point regardless of the legal technicalities.

As for the incriminating email itself, which – in a burst of novelistic drama – was posted along with a statement by Don Junior, its explicitness renders it laughably suspicious. Goldstone informs Junior that he has some juicy information on Hillary’s canoodling with the Russians and that the Russian Crown Prosecutor – their Attorney General – is prepared to release “some official documents” attesting to this. “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information,”says Goldstone, “but it’s part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.”

Do I detect a note mockery it Goldstone’s missive? You’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to miss it. Yes, he says, this material is “sensitive,” but I’m going to reveal the identity and motivations of the source in writing, for the record, so that it can exist in cyberspace forever, a message to posterity saying: There’s one born every minute!

We are now being told that this dubious concoction of shady characters and “oppo reseach” that came to nothing is proof of Putin’s takeover of the White House. But it’s a long way from the Goldstone-Junior correspondence to the WikiLeaks DNC/Podesta document dump.

Expect this circus to stay in town for many months. My guess, however, is that the audience will soon be sparse.

25 thoughts on “Did Trump Jr. ‘Collude’ With Putin – Or Was He Set Up?”

Fascinating how no one wants to investigate the two big known cases of “interfering” in the recent American elections.

1) The DNC, Clinton and other top Democrats. In Americas two-party form of limited democracy, to get a chance to be President one has to win one of the two corporate party nominations. If the choice had been left up to Democratic voters, Sen Sanders (VT) would have been the nominee. We know for a fact that Hillary and the DNC and the top Democrats colluded and rigged this process to make sure Hillary was the nominee. This is the most blatant effort to “interfere” in the most recent elections. Its noticeable that this is not being investigated in any way that I can think of.

2) Israel. Candidates go to Israel for fund-raisers. There are other sources of “Israel related money” that flows into American elections. Most American politicians seem to think they must tap into this money to win. Again, its rather noticeable that this is not being investigated.

Yet, the allegations about Russia, which have gone evidence-free ever since Hillary started this as a smokescreen to cover up her illegal collusion to fix the Democratic Party race, are still hugely investigated.

And, perhaps having now seen the huge influence that the “Deep State” has on running the country this days, perhaps someone should look into how the “Deep State” worked to influence the last election?

I’m not sure about the audience for this “going away”. There are a ton of people in this country who hate Trump’s guts. There are Hillary supporters who felt they got ripped off by the electoral college. There are Sanders supporters who hate Trump because he isn’t PC enough for their likes and depending on who they are they might think he is a racist, sexist, homophobic, etc, etc,. There are Republicans who backed Cruz and who would right now prefer to see Pence take over. All of these people LOVE the Russian story.

Just always remember that reality has very little to do with whether or not these stories are popular. What matters is that they WANT them to be true. Given enough desire anything can become real and since the press is pushing it, that’s more than enough “evidence” for them.

It’s confirmation bias on steroids and the Trump haters simply don’t care if it’s true or not. They want it to be true and they talk as if it’s true, their friends want it to be true that they also talk like it’s true, therefore it doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. It’s real in their minds and that’s enough. So long as the press keeps this alive it will continue to dominate in the minds of the true believers.

I bet there are 50 million people who think Trump is a Russian Agent and possibly that many who think Obama is a Muslim who is in Cahoots with some kind of Islamic plan to take over America.

What’s really pathetic is that these people don’t get it that they are being used. There is much more to the anti-Russian narrative than simply trying to hurt Trump. The people pushing this story want either a cold war, proxy war or a hot war with Russia and they will do anything to make sure that it happens.

Do you think President Putin is more popular than President Trump? Personally I think too many of the Reps and Dems in the Congress and the Senate don’t want their swamp drained and, if they can make the “big lie” become true, they’ll try to impeach President Trump to save their swamp.

Well he certainly has more popular support in his own country than Trump does. But the same would be true of any recent president. Putin is very popular in Russia and for good reason. He has done a good job of turning around their economy and he helped end a lot of the plundering of resources that was going on.

I’m not so sure that Trump is all that concerned about draining the swamp but they might be afraid of him anyway. At the very least they must hate the idea that he won the office that they pretty much all would kill to get. And considering that he never held office or worked for the government at all, that must hurt. (how dare that outsider take our dream job)

Personally I’m just glad that the people of the US showed their disdain for career politicians and when given a choice decided to pick someone who was not one of these leaches.

I certainly wish Trump the best and hope he does a good job. I’m not thrilled with his foreign policy so far, but I know that I would have absolutely hated Hillary’s. Hillary managed to put herself in a position where there was not a single thing she did that I could support. Trump at least talked about a few things that seemed better, not that I expected him to be able to get too much done, which isn’t always a bad thing either.

“…people of the US showed their disdain for career politicians and when
given a choice decided to pick someone who was not one of these leaches.”

Well, that’s one way of looking at it. I was also glad the Americans were able to thumb their noses at the “leaches.” The problem was what they chose instead. In their good intent they were force-fed a slug without a clue.

The repercussions, once they (American voters who chose Trump) realize they’ve been swindled, are stark. They will be manipulated, again, to chose someone wholly unqualified, again. They might be given a choice of another “businessman” but more likely someone with a brain who isn’t so far in debt that they can’t procure a loan in the US – someone like Koch? No agenda there.

Or they might be given a choice of one of the “leaches” except one much farther from the core of the party, whichever party, doesn’t matter. But a fringe dweller, like Cruz, or worse (there are some.)

But rest assured, the American people will be given

a choice that they will come to regret.

I wonder why the media never state that the American people are being purposely given, for candidates, from whatever they can scrape up off the locker room floor.

Yes but their immediate goal is to effect a regime change and they have had so much success in the past few years that they now believe they have the guns to effect a regime change in any country that they want to control, now they smell blood.

Trump is so ignorant anybody set him up for anything.
I am sure many actors not too reputable they are working overtime to set him up.
He is 10 years old with nuclear button on his disposal. Only in America this is possible.
Remember G.W.Bush elected twice and after many years world cleaning the mess he created.

Which idiot politician reguest help from Russia to use for political gain in America?
He was digging his own and his idiot father’s grave.
This is obviously to technical to comprehend for you so you might as well it is possible to you to go fuck yourself.

It’s safe to say you’re not alone. Assume that tens of millions of Americans are sick of the Russia bashing. CNN and msnbc are not. The Russia/Putin bashing Trump-hate is a cash cow for them, so they will keep at it so long as the cash flows in. Irrespective of collateral damage. But for the Dems, who keep riding the Russia bs, … what of them?

I see the Dem party as already dead. The coup de gras was when Hillary called the working class “Deplorables”. The Dems can’t lose that huge constituency — throw it away, actually — and remain viable/competitive. Game over. Stick a fork in them, they’re done.

The Russia nonsense for the Dems is just an exercise in grave digging. Come 2018, the Trumpinator will just bulldoze it over and tamp it down.

I’m amazed at Justin’s lack of understanding of a very important factor in this “circus” as he calls it.
Let’s assume EVERYTHING he said about this latest issue is true (which of course is debatable). Let’s just say its all true.

The problem is not whether Donald Jr was set up or not. All the characters in this scandal are irrelevant.

What is relevant is Donald Jr’s INTENT. In his email response (I am paraphrasing, but you can verify) he says, if the offer of dirt on Hillary is true, I love it! The intent behind this statement is loud and clear.

I am amazed that Justin doesn’t even bring it up.
I am all for exposing corruption, gerrymandering, nepotism, etc.
But to give Junior a pass with no mention of his role in this is shameful and totally biased.
Remember, this comes after TOTAL DENIALS from many of the campaign aides (including the VP) that there were NO contacts between them and the Russians. They only capitulated AFTER meetings were exposed in the press.

You need to examine this against the backdrop of denials, coverups, vicious attacks against individuals in the media, etc.
This is hardly presidential and certainly not the administration that’s going to DRAIN THE SWAMP. In fact, it looks like they are the swamp!
Totally disappointed with Justin.

“What is relevant is Donald Jr’s INTENT. In his email response (I am paraphrasing, but you can verify) he says, if the offer of dirt on Hillary is true, I love it! The intent behind this statement is loud and clear.”

I agree with you that this is the heart of the matter, and like you I am surprised that the so few of the anti-Trump people have zeroed in on this crucial element. Good on you for bringing it front and center. Let’s take a look.

Trump jr gets an email that says, “We’ve got dirt on HRC from the Russian govt, and we want to share it with you as part of Russia/Putin’s effort to help Trump win the presidency.” (This may not be absolutely the precise wording, but this will be the most aggressive/damning “parsing”.)

Then Trump jr says, “I love it, bring it on.” This will be spun as Trump jr declaring his willingness and his INTENT (your caps) to collude, and as the very first substantive act in the process of collusion.

However — now the case for the defense — after that, it’s all a giant nothingburger, because beyond the emails there was absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Nothingburger because (1) intentions aren’t actions, and (2) the “bait” — “dirt on HRC from the Russian plan to install their Manchurian Candidate” — was a total fabrication with zero connection to Russia. No Putin/Kremlin involvement at all. Just a fictional lure from a fat, ugly, British “publicist” political dirty trickster.

The Russian lawyer appears to have been a pawn. Her interest, the element that drew her into this silly little scheme, was her concern about Russian orphan adoptions. She wasn’t privy to the content of the emails and didn’t know anything about any dirt on HRC. She was a prop who provided “the Russian element”, her Russian name.

Don jr’s putative “evil intent” may make for a momentary kerfuffle, some screaming and shouting and more ratings for CNN and msnbc, but it has no political lethality. And it will end up a spectacularly embarrassing exercise in futility — not that that will dissuade anyone. It will be futile to try and make a case for collusion out of Don jr’s “I love it, bring it on!”, because there was nobody on the other side to collude with: no Kremlin involvement, no Kremlin Manchurian Candidate plot, no HRC dirt. Nothing, nada, zippo, a phantom.

And, of course, no involvement with or connection to the President. So the only possible impact is that maybe Trump, his family attacked yet again, decides enough is enough, and dishes the wrath of god to various and sundry Swampistas.

Bottom line: when the dust has settled, the Trump opposition will be worse off than ever.

“Totally off topic, but how serious is this latest “revelation” over
Trump’s Russian ties. The British and NZ media is baying for blood, but
they do that anyway.”

“Not serious at all. If the situation had been reversed, not only would
Chelsea have taken the meeting but she would have channeled whatever she
learned directly to the front page of the NY Times and they would have
gleefully printed it AND given her a medal for her patriotism in
revealing Trump’s perfidy.”

Since I am under the impression that it was only the four of them at the meeting, one of those little things that interest me is which of the three — Kushner, Junior or Manafort — did the translating since Veselnitskava claims she only speaks Russian? Or was there another person in the room?

Just speaking as a plain, ordinary, every day citizen, I wish more people would write in plain English so I could understand what they are saying instead of trying to embellish every sentence with flowery adverbs and adjectives so much so that I don’t have a clue as to what they just said. I still don’t understand what all is going on with Jr’s emails.

Thanks for this, actual, useful, journalism. (Usually, such political news is reported like sports: all stats and score-keeping, with losers.) My only comment is that, of course, First Amendment protections are due to each and every person, not just journalists. We each have a right to use “the press.”
We, consumers, are “the market” and market forces produces liars in politics for a reason: we’ve taught them to fear telling the truth, because we don’t take the time to understand it. This piece sheds light for us. Thanks.

The allegations against Trump’s campaign/staff certainly don’t look good and are plausible. Maybe Trump should be impeached, but for waging war without congressional authorization or a million other offenses, not for being sleezy, which the American people were 110% informed about from day one.

Ultimately the effect and perhaps intent of all this is to vilify anyone who would dare to actually talk to the Russians, or hesitate to do any number of aggressive moves against them without provocation.

They might hang around if the truth about who was colluding with whom becomes the narrative.

Note that the presstitutes are always out with these stories in the late afternoon, so that the White House is blinded by their release as it becomes the lead story on every evening newscast. This substantiates the connection between the press and the Deep State in their combined opposition to the President. They’re trying to build a mountain, while the White House can only whack moles.

But every one of these stories connecting the President to Russia have one common thread: There was no illegal act committed by the President or his campaign team.

Yet the real collusion is between the Democrats and the Ukrainians, with Fusion GPS in the center. And just like Hillary had as her personal assistants a group of lawyers so that they could invoke lawyer-client privilege, here we have a political operative group claiming that they’re journalists, so they can hide behind the Constitution.